by Sarah Lin
Though he wanted to get Fiyu's observations for himself, and for that matter her full report about Siatans, that fact swept aside other concerns for Theo. This time, he resisted the urge to look at Senka and instead spoke back in a low voice. "You've been investigating her?"
"After something happened, yes. She gets covered in filth sometimes, and she stinks horribly, so Fiyu decided to give her a bath." Nauda chewed on her lip a moment before glancing over to him. "Her body looked... artificial. Her skin looks like flesh from here, but her joints don't connect smoothly, one body part just sticks into another. I thought she must be a construct, until I saw the Siatan."
"The Nine Worlds contain a great many strange things." Recognizing he was being a bit portentous, Theo smiled at himself. "But I have no idea what Senka is. I still think the most likely theory is that she's from another world, one stranger than mine."
"Maybe it doesn't matter, and she's just lost. I never brought it up because I don't know what we should do about it. Seeing the Siatan just... made me wonder."
Whatever else she might have said was interrupted when Antha approached them with a broad smile on her face. Nauda quickly adopted a friendlier expression, while Fiyu tried to join them, slowed down by Senka abruptly latching onto her leg.
"It's everything you promised, Peanen," Antha said. "The resulting material isn't exceptionally valuable, but it could be converted into a sublime adhesive and it might have healing applications. We have a huge excess of granitebile, but you've just turned it into an asset."
Theo nodded, trying not to look too smug. "I did it to help House Blacksilver, but I expected it to help me too."
"Yes, if any contribution was worthy of merits, it's this one. Given the unusual nature of your achievement, there are no exact protocols, so it's up to you... would you like to be compensated in Fithan Discs, or in House merits? We'll insist on giving you some of both, but which is your preference?"
"I'd like ten percent of the profits made from the converted granitebile, every month."
Antha immediately recoiled, the threat to her profits a far greater danger than any threat to her life. "Ten percent! You expect us to calculate such a thing and then pay you in perpetuity? What you've done is a great aid to the House, but there are limits to reason. You don't own the mines or their byproducts, nor the petalfilters..."
"But you'll go on making money that you wouldn't have without me, forever. I'm sure you've already estimated the numbers: will it take even a year for your profits to dwarf the small pile of merits you intended to give me?"
Though Antha bristled at his argument, some of the other officials came to speak with her, and Theo knew he had a strong position. Of course, asking for ten percent was an absurd request, but he'd only started there to set their frame of reference too high. His actual goal was something more valuable than a bit of money.
"What about a promotion, free of merits?" another official offered. "A higher salary every month in exchange for nothing but continued contributions?"
"Throw in promotions for my allies as well, and I might consider it." Theo pretended not to care, but the offer was actually tempting. Still, if he reframed it as being paid 1300 merits per year and a little money, it seemed less remarkable, especially since he only had five months.
"Of course, your allies as well. Perhaps for a slightly lesser amount, but you've been eager members, so-"
"What about access to the Blacksilver vaults? Say... instead of ten percent of profits, ten items from the vaults, which I'll pledge to continue using for the House. Consider it an investment, since I'll be able to do even more for the organization."
They argued back from the second ridiculous offer, but Theo thought that he had them. In the end, he negotiated them to three items from the vaults, a hundred merits for the sake of formality, and a tiny fraction of a percentage on the profits. He hadn't expected to receive the last one at all, just wanted leverage to get into the vaults, but he'd certainly take it.
Once the deal was agreed upon, Antha led them deeper into the complex, as if eager to seal the terms. They went past gates that ordinary members weren't allowed through, past several pillars that hummed with energy, and eventually down into a fortified basement. In addition to the Rulers standing guard, the passage down into the earth was heavily warded and locked with several keys.
While the vault was opened, Theo turned back to smile at Fiyu and Nauda. "One item for each of us, I think? I doubt I could have argued them above two items if not for your presence making that seem unfair, so you're owed it anyway."
"No! Senka wants!" Senka interrupted whatever Nauda had been about to say and leapt at his elbow. As she wrapped her legs around his arm and began pummeling him with both hands, he wondered if he could feel the artificiality or not. "Give Senka a present! If everyone else gets a present Senka gets a present!"
"Senka gets nothing." Theo pulled her off his arm and flattened her to the ground with several gravitational fields. That might have been enough, but he immediately second-guessed the thought and bent down beside her. "You're thinking of stealing things, aren't you? They wouldn't take that kindly, and you can't get away with it. Stay here."
"Sporp!" Her eyes went wide as she started up at him. "You think Senka would do a blooky thing like that?"
"Don't insult me by asking." Theo increased the strength of the gravitational fields a little and left her there as the group was finally escorted into the House Blacksilver vaults.
The outer chamber was filled with gold, jewels, and other mostly useless things. Theo sensed no sublime materials at all, except from a few statues that he thought had more historical value than any real power. If he'd stolen it all, he might have been able to sell it for a moderate amount, but that wasn't an option. Antha and the guards didn't insult him by offering anything from that chamber, just escorted them deeper.
There, he began to see items of real value. One large chamber was filled with various vehicles, many of them chariots. Typically such large vehicles required a Ruler's cantae, but he saw several that were constructed so that any soulcrafter could easily use them. A few might have been slightly superior to their sleigh, but an incremental improvement was worthless for now.
Unfortunately, the guards wouldn't let them split up, so they kept moving together through the displays. One section was filled with soulhome blueprints and ancient books - the latter could potentially be useful if he had all the time in the world, but they weren't worth the gamble. Many sections held armaments, most of them weapons but others simply functional. Other chambers held stores of valuable sublime materials, only a few of which held his attention.
For the most part, everything he saw was clearly maintained for regular use. After all, it would be stupid of the House to keep valuable items locked up just as prizes for their workers. Many might be worthy items on their own, but he needed something better.
"Do you have a chamber for sublime materials that you couldn't use?" Theo asked. "Or anything old with an uncertain function?"
"Something close to that." Antha glanced at him skeptically, but she couldn't deny the request now that he had access to the vault. No doubt she was thinking the same thing he was: useful materials would have been claimed by the House's strongest soulcrafters, so the most valuable items would be those that they hadn't figured out how to use.
When they were brought to a smaller chamber alongside a weapons room, at last he started to see promising options. The walls were lined by shelves filled with various odd sublime materials. He saw a miniature tree growing around a hovering seed, a sphere with a sandstorm inside it, knives that spun uncontrollably, and more.
His first priority was anything that might serve as a central explosion, but nothing seemed to fit. Many of the sublime materials looked Fithan, and the world didn't seem suited to such things. Perhaps it was the dull red sun, perhaps something else, it was irrelevant for the time being.
In the end, three items struck him as truly exceptional. The
first was a flame contained within a sphere that he was sure would fit Fiyu's soulhome, so he intended to suggest it to her. He struggled to choose between a seed that exerted significant gravity and a hunk of crimson rock that spun violently.
Both held significant cantae, closer to Ruler than Archcrafter, and would fit in his designs. In the end he chose against the seed primarily because it was organic: the tree it grew might be stronger than the rock, but after his experiences in Tatian, he wasn't sure it would match his soulhome completely. This was decidedly not the time to take a risk and potentially degrade the quality of his blueprint.
"This one." Theo gestured to one of the Rulers to lower the defenses and then eagerly scooped up the rock. It continued to spin in his hand, intensely enough that it would have torn skin if his body wasn't reinforced. He entirely understood why many would struggle to include it in a soulhome, but he could use it to represent multiple phenomena orbiting around a black hole.
When he walked back, he found Nauda in the weapons room with another guard, examining a trident. "Could the central tine be removed?" she asked. "Perhaps melted down and added back to the staff?"
"I suppose it could," one of the officials said. "This armament was forged by an Authority, but simply reforging part of it should be possible without excessive expense, so long as the inscriptions are not damaged."
Judging from her smile, Nauda had made her decision, but Theo still nodded toward it. "You have your new staff, I take it?"
"The shape needs modification, but the spirit of it matches what I need." Nauda ran her fingers along one of the outer tines up to the point. "A bit more violent than what I had on Tatian, but perhaps that's appropriate. Plus, this armament is actually worthy of soulcrafting a room or two for it."
Though Theo was curious about her plans there, the vault wasn't the place to discuss them. He instead looked for Fiyu, who was shuffling about one of the sublime ingredient tables. It appeared to be mostly varieties of sand, but she didn't look particularly satisfied.
Instead of speaking to Fiyu, he just stepped up beside her and waited. Soon enough, she looked up to him somberly. "They have sublime sands of high quality here, but I am not sure they are suited for me."
"Not good enough for making glass?"
"These could all become glass, but not the proper variety. This one..." Her hands passed over one of the closed cases. "I think it came from a terrible burning waste, and the glass it produced would be fiery red. That would be much too disruptive for my soulhome. And this one is from a dust storm, and this..."
"I have something else for you." Theo gestured for her to follow and they moved back into the smallest chamber until they stood before the sphere of flame. "Feel the cantae in this thing. It's almost pure burning, not light or warmth. Your soulhome is going to have a heart chamber with a flame on every floor, right?"
"I am not sure if it will be a flame every time, but fires are a stable source." Fiyu bent down and peered at the flame. "I like that it is so quiet and calm."
"Yet destructive. I don't know if your Archcrafter floor will be devoted to anything like that, but surely you'll need raw destructive cantae at some point. This could be the perfect material for a heart chamber."
"Thank you, but I do not think I will use this. My relative has gathered the appropriate materials for heart chambers on each tier. I will wait for him."
She turned away, returning to the sand, and Theo had to let her go. He was a bit irritated that she'd rejected his advice, and frustrated that she insisted on relying on her relative, but in the end she was her own soulcrafter. Eventually she chose a particularly dark sand that she thought would make a good glass, then the whole group was swiftly escorted from the vault.
Once they were back in the outer courtyards, Nauda tapped her new trident on the ground and smiled at him. "Thanks for this, Theo. I figured you were going to take all three for yourself."
"Not at all. I still owe you for the trenchgem, and I know you'd do the same for me." Theo touched her shoulder, just smiled at Fiyu, and led them back into the complex. "Let's just focus on being prepared for anything Esaire's family tries to throw at us."
Despite his words, Theo hadn't made the decision lightly. It had been a calculated choice, based in large part on the fact that he'd doubted he'd find more than one perfectly matched sublime material. Had there been two, he would have needed to make a much more difficult decision weighing his allies versus the immediate threat of the duel.
That was just for a few sublime materials. If everything was truly on the line, he wasn't sure what he'd do.
Chapter 18
With two major sublime materials acquired, Theo left behind polishing and carving tasks to focus on essential work. Refinements to a given room made the difference between a mediocre soulcrafter and an excellent one, but having functional rooms would make the difference between life and death in the coming duel.
The trenchgem had been a valuable find, the question was where best to place it. His design was for each new material to be placed on top of a technique chamber on the first floor, with vents in between for cantae flow, but in this case the ideal path wasn't clear. He'd settled for placing it above his chamber that generated anti-mass, because resisting pressure was more similar to that than any of the other options.
Even completed, the trenchgem chamber on its own had little effect, perhaps increasing his defenses against pressure, but when its cantae flowed down to the chamber below, it made his anti-mass skill much stronger. Both materials combined effects pushing things away, and if he developed it enough, he might even be able to create a new sort of defense. Such a technique would require significant spiritual mass, however, so he mostly developed both for use in his singularity.
By contrast, his sublime material from the vault was no question at all. Investigation led him to discover that the spinning red stone was called a stonevortex, and he placed it directly on top of his gravitational torsion chamber. The spinning cantae matched perfectly with his technique of shifting gravitational planes, making the technique much more deadly. He'd tried it on some demons while on assignment and been pleased with the results.
Of course, both of those chambers were still extremely simple, just suspended materials within a great deal of carving. There was a lot of work between functional rooms and truly finished chambers.
The traditional form for such chambers was a large dais, crafted from supporting sublime materials that would enhance the strength of the object placed at the top. He'd always thought this method lacked imagination, but also didn't want to fill the rooms with generic furniture or other household materials. It might not require expensive materials, just some decently supportive ones and a lot of time.
As he carved more symbols along the walls of his torsion chamber, Theo frequently glanced down to the vents leading below. Were vents actually the ideal form for his blueprint? Fiyu being so focused on glass made him think of windows set in the floor, though that obviously fit better for the light theme of her soulhome.
For the time being, he stuck to vents. They were completely functional but could be easily filled in or changed once he'd perfected this detail of his blueprint.
Another temporary measure due to the duel impending in... four months? Theo briefly stopped working as he realized that a few days ago, it had been exactly four months until his duel. He'd taken major steps with two sublime materials for the singularity, but he still needed two more, plus a material to reinforce the central chamber, not to mention training with his new skills.
That in mind, he could accept some of the measures he'd taken. So far, his rule for himself was that he wouldn't do anything that would set back his soulcrafting in the future. Everything he'd done was a step toward his final blueprint, they just weren't necessarily the steps he'd expected to take. Some of the chambers on his first floor still hadn't found their final forms, and he'd have much more to do on the second. If he survived, he'd have a great deal of work to do before he was
ready to ascend to Ruler.
When his fingers became so numb he could barely feel the spirit chisel, Theo recognized that he was reaching a point of diminishing returns and switched activities. Leaving the room behind, he instead climbed down to his central chamber and began testing patterns of cantae flow.
Many soulhomes used simplistic unidirectional designs: cantae moved in straight lines from its sources to the exits. Competent soulcrafters had a smooth cycle, such as Fiyu's emanating heat or Nauda's spiral. His aimed for orbiting around his singularity: easy enough when everything was rotating on the single plane of his first floor, but much more difficult in three dimensions.
With a deep breath, Theo halted all the cantae within his soulhome and tried to push it in a half-sphere that arced through his second floor. The problem was, the cantae that arched up over the top of the sphere promptly went into the ground. He could redirect it, of course, because cantae flow problems could always be overcome with willpower. But it was a clumsy pattern compared to a perfect sphere of cantae that spanned three floors.
Theo was sure he could manage it once he had the space, even if the design had surprised the Authority. That orbiting design was the most effective part of his blueprint, a refinement of his old solar idea that he actually liked better than the original. It lost the absolutely brilliant design Brigana had made for an explosive start, but since that had been lost to him, he'd have to find a different path to the same power.
As he was considering whether or not to try alternate patterns, he noticed that Nauda was approaching his real body. Pulling back out of his soulhome, he glanced up at her, wondering if he'd forgotten something. No, it seemed like she had a new purpose of some kind.
"They finished your staff?" he guessed. She blinked and then shook her head.
"Oh, I forgot you hadn't seen it." Nauda spun the weapon on its end so quickly that the upper tines made a whistling sound. The central tine of the trident had been removed and, judging from the way the base was now studded with black stones, melted down for modifications. It looked much more like her forked staff from before, yet retained the deadly points of the trident. "They finished this a few days ago, you've just been locked away. But that's not why I'm here."